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FoJ: Chapter 2
🕑 Added 2024-04-13 18:54:37 +0000 UTCIt was a sudden shift, one moment we were in a pleasant conversation, the second she manifested her wings in a blinding green light, followed by a bevy of wind slashes manifesting in the air around him.
Meanwhile, a thin sword manifested in the man’s hand, his body surging in blinding speed toward Alex.
Aiko wasn’t idle either, as she grabbed a bunch of parchment talismans from somewhere unknown and threw them at him.
For a normal bystander –the old Alex being one of them- all those things would have happened without them being able to react, but for someone with Garp’s strength and instincts? They may as well be snails.
A fearless grin unknowingly formed in Alex’s face, as he clapped his hands together using only his immense physical strength. The shockwave caused by the move was immense enough that it blew back both the different attacks and the people throwing them.
The man was the strongest physically and the one most equipped to resist the shockwave, and true enough, he managed to stop himself by sticking his sword to the ground, using it as an anchor to push against the force.
Thellsa somehow shifted the surrounding air into a formless cushion, allowing her to land softly.
Alex, noticing that Aiko didn’t have any such means to defend herself in a quick enough manner, surged at blinding speed, appearing behind her and swiftly halting her temporary flight.
“Can we not?” He said. “I really was just looking for a job.”
Aiko quickly gathers herself and pushes her body away from his hold, Alex could have stopped her, but he didn’t.
“That’s such a crock of bullshit.” Said Thell. “Someone like you just comes in here, bypassing the disguising wards, and asks for a job?!” She scoffs. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
“This place was warded?” Alex loudly thought. “I didn’t sense THAT.” He shrugs. “Look, I don’t have any beef with you, if I can’t get a job, that’s fine. But you didn’t have to attack me like that…”
This time, it was Aiko who spoke. Her voice was distinctly rich but notably effeminate. “Who sent you?” She asks.
“No one, really, I knew you were special from your Auras but that’s all, it’s why I said I knew how to fight, I thought it’d increase my chances for getting the job…” He looked around the room. “So… Did I get it?”
“Get what?” It was the first time the man spoke, his voice was TOTALLY not rough and badass, not cool at all.
“The job? This was a test, right?” He said. “You try to get me with some half assed attacks while I demonstrate my strength? That’s how these sorts of things go, right?”
Aiko mouthed the sentence ‘half assed attacks’ in shock, while the man just shook his head.
“A test?! What’d you think this is, an anime?” Exclaimed the owner. “I ought to…” She sighs, massaging the bridge of her nose in frustration. “So, you were actually trying to find a job?”
“Well, I just got kicked out today, so… Yeah?” He answered.
“Alright, let’s go up to my office, Aiko, Cillian, clean up the place, will you?”
Aiko just grunts in frustration, while the newly named Cillian shrugs and turns around.
--*
Thellsa roughly fell in a comfy leather chair, letting out a deep sigh.
“Alright, Alex.” She begins. “Do you actually know what sort of establishment we are?”
“A lounge bar?”
“Yes, but there’s more.” She says. “We’re a lounge bar that caters to the supernatural side of New York; people who are part of the moonlit world get here for many reasons, but our biggest service is the facilitation and enforcement of contracts.”
She puts both her hands on the table. “New York City is one of the biggest cities in the world, naturally that means that it’s home to a bevy of factions, devils, fallen angels, vampires, werewolves, fairies, exorcists, wizards, witches, there’s even a coven of dryads in central park. All of these people require some way to keep the peace, and that’s us.”
Thell gestures toward the inside of the bar. “We’re neutral grounds, conflict escalates between two groups? Well, they come to us to help them get to a compromise. A business deal? They use us as a guarantee to make sure it goes through. We keep the peace through diplomacy, and most importantly, force. Some dumbass thinks he’s too strong to follow the rules? We’re the one who have to make him think otherwise. Get it?”
“I’m only tangentially familiar with supernatural forces, but I do get the gist, yeah.” Alex answers.
“Then you must also understand that if I hire you, then it means that it’s gonna be your job too, and a dangerous one to boot, you’re putting your life in danger, that’s what I’m trying to put through your skull.”
“I get it, in fact that’s great.” He answers. “I was looking for a way into the supernatural side of this world anyway; you’re just giving me a great way to start.”
She sighs. “Alright, I ain’t gonna stop you if that’s what you want.” She says. “You work the bar alongside Aiko, the salary’s 6k per month excluding tips. Is that good for you?”
“Good?! It’s fucking, great, thanks!”
She sighs again, Alex got the impression that she does that fairly often. “Alright, you start tomorrow, so be here at eight p.m., capiche.”
“Aye captain!”
“You’re gonna be a pain in the ass alright; now get the fuck out of my office.”
--*
Thellsa’s headache amplified when a sheepish Alex re-entered her office asking for half his paycheck. She gave it to him, of course, but just because she couldn’t really afford to antagonize him.
‘He treated our attacks like they were dirt…’ She mused.
She left her office to find her subordinates cleaning the mess.
“Ma’am, are we really going to hire that guy?” Aiko asks.
Cillian ignores their conversation, mindlessly swiping broken glass off the floor.
“No.” She answers. “I will be hiring that guy.”
Aiko’s face contorts in chagrin, but she ignores it and goes on. “But he-“
“No buts, Aiko!” Thell interrupts. “You know the situation; we have to take chances as they come.”
She grabs the cocktail made by Alex and downs it in a single shot.
“Get this place cleaned up, it better be completely spotless for tomorrow.”
The sounds of the ringing bell overshadowed whatever words Aiko had for her as she left.
_____
Meanwhile, Alex was ecstatic, he managed to land a very well-paying gig and had a nice entry into the supernatural world in one fell swoop.
‘There’s no way this wasn’t planned by Dick and his friends.’ He mused to himself. ‘What are the odds that I find a place like that in less than an hour after getting dropped in?’
Although, using that logic, that also means that the Thellsa and co. have some exciting events to come, it goes without saying that if they orchestrated me joining them, then there’s also a lot of “content” prepared for the coming times.
But Alex strangely found himself fine with the prospect of exciting times, before recent events he wasn’t a coward, per se, but he tried to avoid such circumstances as much as possible. Now, however, he just found himself excited.
‘Even the small incident at the bar made me feel more alive than ever.’ He thought. ‘Was Garp such a battle junkie? Or am I just turning into one?’
Whatever it was, he didn’t think it was a bad thing, after all, the less he panics in such situations the better it’ll be.
For the rest of the day, Alex went to bank and opened an account, depositing the check given to him by his new boss.
Afterward, he bought a smartphone and a cheap laptop, along with some more clothes. He thought he’d go full in with the bartender theme so he bought a couple of white dress shirts, black vests, black pants, and neckties.
He then found a moderately cheap room at an equally moderate hotel and lay back in the bed.
That night, he dreamt of the open sea and a whole lot of justice.
--*
The next morning, Alex thought to do some training, trying to get somewhat used to his new abilities.
So, after a visit to the grocery store for some rice crackers (He suddenly had a great urge to munch on some.) he found himself on an abandoned warehouse.
He stood in the middle of the empty hall, jumping on the same spot to loosen himself up.
“Alright, let’s do this.” He stops. “First, let’s test strength.”
He heads toward a random bar of steel and grabs it with one hand. Then he lifts it above his head in one fell swoop.
Alex’s expression gets marred by confusion, as he waves the hand grabbing the huge bar of steel up and down with ease. And before long, the steel had twisted into a misshapen shape.
‘What is this, Baki?’ He thought.
The twisted bar of steel fall to the floor with a boom, while Alex puts a hand on his chin in thought.
“Clearly, I lack enough equipment to make thorough tests of my strength, which I should have expected.” He thinks to himself. “The only things I can experiment with are stuff that don’t actually have to do with raw power, which considering Garp’s skillset aren’t particularly varied.”
Then, suddenly, Alex’s body disappears in a blur, and in a moment he was standing at the other side of the room.
He taps the tip of his feet to the ground. “Woah!” He exclaims. “That was a strange experience, knowing that I’m moving extremely fast yet being able to process all that information is crazy.”
He then jumps lightly, before doing the same thing again in the air.
As the iconic sound of Geppou echoes through the room, Alex laughs.”Bwahahaha!” He momentarily stops, noticing that he adopted Garp’s signature laughter, before going around the room, stepping on air like it’s solid. “This is so fun!”
The other signature techniques were kinda anticlimactic in comparison, but they all functioned fairly similarly to what was expected. Rankyaku was somewhat fun too, but it made too much noise.
Another thing to note was that Kami-e doesn’t turn your body into paper; Alex thought it made him look like a drunk, since the goal is not only to relax your body, but also to move with all forces that act on it, like the wind.
He had already used Observation Haki, in fact, he is always using it to a certain extend in order to sense his surroundings. But he did test it some more, and found that there were several differences to what he expected.
In the One Piece, observation was explained as the proverbial sixth sense, the ability to sense other people’s will and in return, their intent, allowing you to see attacks before they reach you, and in its advanced applications, to predict the future.
All of that is still there too, he could sense other people across great distances and also predict the coming seconds, but an application that was unfamiliar to him was the ability to sense the entire mystical energies home to the DxD universe, mainly, life-force and mana.
Those two energies encompass the world in its totality (or at least, that’s how it seemed to him.), the natural life-force, or Ki, present in nature was extremely abundant, but more so next to crowded areas where there are a lot of people, and therefore, life.
It was also tinged with a ‘corruption’ made of all those people’s negative emotions, it took Alex a long time to get used to the whole nastiness of it, but he grit his metaphorical teeth and went with it.
The second was mana, while life-force was chaotic and ebbed and flowed around living things, mana seemed to encompass everything in almost equal amounts, it seemed to Alex like it was stock still, it didn’t move unless prodded, and he had no idea how to prod it. So, he ignored it.
Armament Haki was somewhat generic in comparison, the how of it changed, as when Alex channeled it, he found his Touki enveloping his body and painting the relevant body part in the iconic steely black that he’s used to. It had the same effects though, made him stronger, faster, more durable, etc… But that’s the beauty of Armament Haki, it’s simple but effective.
Conqueror’s Haki had some changes that were… interesting, to say the least. When Alex flexed his will according to his otherworldly memories, not only did the familiar spiritual ‘weight’ make its appearance, but there was a tangible effect on the surrounding natural energy, as its ‘corruptive’ influence seemed to make way for his own. The natural negativity made it somewhat harder to use Conqueror’s Haki however, as it seemed to almost fight back against his will.
And as he stopped, instead of staying in the surrounding space, the ‘conquered’ natural energy went into his body instead.
It seemed to surge into his inner flame like crazy, and after emptying a warehouse amount of natural energy, he found that his inner reserves have increased ever so slightly.
‘That works…’ He thought. ‘In fact, that’s fucking great! Now I’m like some sort of generic cultivator!’
But sadly, it wasn’t as good as it seemed, while the natural energy of the world was over abundant and he was able to absorb as much as he wanted without even making a dent in it, he found that he got diminishing returns the more he absorbed.
After experimenting, he found that the reasons for that were unexpected, it seems that the more ‘corruption’ the surrounding natural energy had the more ‘refined’ it’ll turn out after getting “conquered”, the difficulty of conquering it also increased the more corrupted it was, as Alex found his next attempts to be much easier than the first.
By the time he has finished his experiments, it was already the afternoon, and Alex left the empty warehouse with only the barest of corruption in its natural energies.
--*
After getting lunch at some random bistro steakhouse, Alex entered the Lounge at 7:50 p.m., ten minutes before the designated time.
“Ah, you came in early. Good.” He found the proprietor of the establishment sitting in the spot he first saw her, at the bar, sipping on a colorful cocktail.
“Alright.” She mentions to the bar. “That’s your station, get there and get familiar with it. Your outfit is enough, no need for an apron if you don’t want to.” She says.
Alex just nods and follows her instructions, searching through every nook and cranny of the bar in order to familiarize himself.
After a while, Alex had already finished getting ready, so he just stood in front of his new boss, mindlessly wiping an already clean glass of wine.
“Now, we only open at eleven p.m., I called you early to give you the details about the more… peculiar aspects of our establishment.” She takes a sip of her drink. “So, tell me, what do you know about the supernatural?”
